I think this is definitely true in the sense that some tasks pf junior tech jobs are evaporating.
But when computers became ubiquitous, bankers worried what associates would do for a living if nobody had to manually calculate spreadsheets—yet the finance internship is alive and well.
I'm not saying this disruption will have no impact at all. But we'll keep finding things to do for young people, they'll just move up the chain of command.
trod1234 · 53m ago
Hiring is down across the board in tech jobs. Brain drains occurring because its no longer economically viable and the most competent people with options will move to other areas and not turn back. There are people with 10 years of experience doing the job that can't find jobs in the field. I think you neglect how much the factor market has shrunk.
It is a mistake to compare what's happened with past events and assume the future holds something similar. Anyone losing money on the stock market knows this intuitively. Its survivor bias.
The problem also isn't about what to do with young people. That's a red herring.
The critical problem is, what naturally happens in a sequential pipeline when nothing goes in, and the pipeline finishes having the remaining people coming out of it. Eventually its empty.
At that point, no one will be able to hire such talent because it won't exist anymore, not at any price. The cost of labor in getting rid of those positions may drop in the short run, but then you get infinite cost for those positions that you need to replace in the form of you simply can't find people.
Its what engineer's call a cascade failure. These are usually catastrophic, and rarely noticed at first except as a rule in blood (after the fact). You don't notice until its too late to do anything but that's a problem for next quarter thanks to money-printing/debt issuance, and it will keep being that until its too late.
This is the problem when the majority of people have lost objective reality, which many people have slowly been noticing since 2016, and its just been growing worse.
The smart competent people warn and ring the alarm bells, nothing happens, things get worse, braindrain happens because the competent people withdraw to focus on their own futures, and the cycle continues until it cannot. A runaway feedback loop.
whatevaa · 5h ago
This is different than in the past. Evolving AI might replace All such positions.
FinnLobsien · 4h ago
All positions we know today. At the time when computers went mainstream, it automated many jobs we no longer have (e.g. manually calculating spreadsheets), but also created new entry-level ones.
People then couldn't even have predicted what a "social media intern" might do or that there could be "associate software engineers" (SWEs were basically magicians).
I'm not saying there won't be disruption and tough times for a while, but I also think we'll figure out new things for young people (and ourselves) to do.
It’s a great question. I think part of the answer lies in changing how we frame entrepreneurship. Instead of just focusing on the hustle and financial rewards, we should highlight the creative problem-solving, the freedom to experiment, and the satisfaction of building something meaningful from scratch.
A lot of the excitement in other subjects comes from discovery and exploration, and starting a business can be just as much about learning and adapting as it is about scaling and profits.
What do you think? Would reframing entrepreneurship as a craft make it more interesting to beginners?
turtleyacht · 9h ago
How do we make starting a business just as interesting as any other subject?
joshstrange · 6h ago
We (aka the government) actually _support_ small businesses instead of just paying lip service to how small business is the lifeblood of the economy.
trod1234 · 1h ago
Well that really can't happen until small businesses are on an even playing field with large business.
Most large businesses have been allowed to carve out moats, and other financial benefits through lobbying which small business do not have access to.
This includes preferential banking and loans where they effectively are receiving money-printed regardless of loss allowing them to leverage buyout competitors and increase the costs on everyone through monopoly.
Anyone aware of how money-printing fails can't help but be concerned as the number of businesses in a sector trend and sieve towards zero. The parasitic model eventually hits a critical saturation point where the unsound practices can't be offloaded anymore, and it all fails overnight after that point with no one capable of stopping it.
Then there is of course the fact that certain businesses due to regulatory simply cannot enter the market because the costs exceed the cashflow, or the requirements cannot ever occur. For example chartering banks post 2008, you need a board of directors that will be personally liable for decisions they make as a group, and they can't be compensated in any way. No ones going to sign up for that.
Then of course there is the scaling issue, where you can't be profitable until you have scaled past a specific point, which you can never reach without first being profitable.
All in all, there are quite a large number of problems where everything is set to collapse in the near future if nothing is done, but the only people who can do something are the ones that have in aggregate created the problem to begin with. A positive feedback system that runs away.
al2o3cr · 7h ago
There are growing signs that artificial intelligence
poses a real threat to a substantial number of the
entry-level jobs
Correction: growing signs that MANAGERS pose a threat of using LLMs to replace these entry-level jobs, regardless of if the replacement is equally effective.
This isn't a technology problem, it's a people problem. As ever, NYT breaks out the passive voice to make a smokescreen for the people who are actually doing the breaking.
But when computers became ubiquitous, bankers worried what associates would do for a living if nobody had to manually calculate spreadsheets—yet the finance internship is alive and well.
I'm not saying this disruption will have no impact at all. But we'll keep finding things to do for young people, they'll just move up the chain of command.
It is a mistake to compare what's happened with past events and assume the future holds something similar. Anyone losing money on the stock market knows this intuitively. Its survivor bias.
The problem also isn't about what to do with young people. That's a red herring.
The critical problem is, what naturally happens in a sequential pipeline when nothing goes in, and the pipeline finishes having the remaining people coming out of it. Eventually its empty.
At that point, no one will be able to hire such talent because it won't exist anymore, not at any price. The cost of labor in getting rid of those positions may drop in the short run, but then you get infinite cost for those positions that you need to replace in the form of you simply can't find people.
Its what engineer's call a cascade failure. These are usually catastrophic, and rarely noticed at first except as a rule in blood (after the fact). You don't notice until its too late to do anything but that's a problem for next quarter thanks to money-printing/debt issuance, and it will keep being that until its too late.
This is the problem when the majority of people have lost objective reality, which many people have slowly been noticing since 2016, and its just been growing worse.
The smart competent people warn and ring the alarm bells, nothing happens, things get worse, braindrain happens because the competent people withdraw to focus on their own futures, and the cycle continues until it cannot. A runaway feedback loop.
People then couldn't even have predicted what a "social media intern" might do or that there could be "associate software engineers" (SWEs were basically magicians).
I'm not saying there won't be disruption and tough times for a while, but I also think we'll figure out new things for young people (and ourselves) to do.
A lot of the excitement in other subjects comes from discovery and exploration, and starting a business can be just as much about learning and adapting as it is about scaling and profits.
What do you think? Would reframing entrepreneurship as a craft make it more interesting to beginners?
Most large businesses have been allowed to carve out moats, and other financial benefits through lobbying which small business do not have access to.
This includes preferential banking and loans where they effectively are receiving money-printed regardless of loss allowing them to leverage buyout competitors and increase the costs on everyone through monopoly.
Anyone aware of how money-printing fails can't help but be concerned as the number of businesses in a sector trend and sieve towards zero. The parasitic model eventually hits a critical saturation point where the unsound practices can't be offloaded anymore, and it all fails overnight after that point with no one capable of stopping it.
Then there is of course the fact that certain businesses due to regulatory simply cannot enter the market because the costs exceed the cashflow, or the requirements cannot ever occur. For example chartering banks post 2008, you need a board of directors that will be personally liable for decisions they make as a group, and they can't be compensated in any way. No ones going to sign up for that.
Then of course there is the scaling issue, where you can't be profitable until you have scaled past a specific point, which you can never reach without first being profitable.
All in all, there are quite a large number of problems where everything is set to collapse in the near future if nothing is done, but the only people who can do something are the ones that have in aggregate created the problem to begin with. A positive feedback system that runs away.
This isn't a technology problem, it's a people problem. As ever, NYT breaks out the passive voice to make a smokescreen for the people who are actually doing the breaking.